Waiting For An Answer
by lavaignited
Summary: When the case of Sherlock's kidnapping is dropped by Scotland Yard, John finds himself a year later going through the motions in a shadow of the life he'd had with the great detective. When Sherlock is unexpectedly found on the side of the road, everyone he knew is left to wonder if having him back will only lead to more pain. Johnlock and angst warning.


It had been three months and six days since Sherlock had disappeared without a trace on a case he hadn't bothered to tell John about. John should have expected such reckless behaviour- within his first few hours of knowing the detective, he'd willingly driven off with a murderous cabbie. Three months and six days, and John received a phone call at half-past two in the morning. 221B was still dark, for he hadn't bothered to turn on the lights. He'd expected the call to be quick and likely of no use, but he felt obliged to answer it. Many had contacted him within the recent weeks- mostly children- to report sightings of Sherlock. This infuriated him; any serious sighting should be forwarded to the police, and not to John himself. He constantly cursed his companion for having put their number up on his website, and often contemplated taking it down, but felt on some level that it was best to leave Sherlock's site untouched for when he got back.

Letting his hand linger on the handle of the telephone, he briefly thought that maybe he shouldn't pick it up. This had been a rough night already; John had been plagued with nightmares of the war, and had woken up feeling ill with a cold. He couldn't bear to hear out yet another sighting story just to have it end up being for nothing. Nevertheless, he was up anyway, unlikely to fall back asleep. So, he took the phone from its receiver and held it to his ear. A moment of silence past before John quietly asked "Hello?"

He was greeted with a faint static noise, and a sharp and unsteady inhale. John swallowed, frightened, lurching forward as he awaited a response. "…John?" whispered a voice, deep and of a disturbingly desperate tone. The sigh that followed was equally disconcerting, coming out in uneven waves with the slightest of sickly voice accompanying it. John's lip quivered and he felt his forehead begin to heat up. Immediately, he grabbed for the tape recorder Lestrade had asked him months ago to keep by the phone, just in case this very thing happened. He clicked the record button.

"Sherlock," John said in as clear a voice he could muster, trying to collect himself to compensate for how utterly terrified Sherlock sounded on the other end. "Tell me where you are." A brief moment of quiet followed, making John fear that something had happened. "Do you know where you are?" he loudly asserted, and the response quickly followed.

"No, no. I…"Sherlock began, sounding nervous and distant. He pulled the speaker closer to his mouth then, making his next airy demands clear and almost painful in John's ear. "I called to tell you… to close the case." He said. John's face sank just as rapidly as his heart did. He prayed that this didn't mean what he thought it did.

"No." John said, steadfast, his throat burning. "No. We're going to find you. The police and I will be on our way. Just tell me anything, _anything _that you think might-"

"Please. _Please_, John, do not make this difficult. Do as I say." He said, his voice hoarse from disuse, or, John dreaded to think, from screaming. " This… this is the last you're ever going to hear from me. So listen carefully, okay?" He continued. John fought to hide his distress. This was all too familiar; it was nauseating.

"You're doing this to me _again_?" he spat. John's voice was almost unrecognizable, teetering on madness. "Sherlock, please. I swear to God-"

"I love you." Sherlock said. His tone softened, and the tension over the phone line gave way for a different feeling. Suddenly he sounded like the man John had known, the man who had happily been his lover only three months before. "I love you." He repeated gently. For a moment, the faint static was all John could hear. He wondered if he should say it back, if that was what Sherlock wanted. "I need you to close the case. To move out of the flat…" he continued, now and again pausing to groan with pain. His cadence alone cut John like a knife. "Focus on your work, find someone else. Just please, forget about me, John… I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry." He said, his voice cracking at the end. It was only then that John realized Sherlock was crying. "I love you." He said for a third time, shoving the last needle into John's heart.

"I love you too. I love you." He quickly assured him, but there was no answer, and there wouldn't be. There was a strange noise on the other end, like a knocking, followed by total nothingness. John stayed on the line until there was a screeching in his ear; a mechanical woman's voice that said the phone was off the hook. Trembling, he lowered it back onto the receiver and looked aimlessly around the empty flat. A hollow feeling found the front of his head that seemed like sleepiness, but to John felt more like death. Sherlock's things were for the most part where they'd been three months ago. Elements of his experiments were spread upon the table, and the bullet-pierced smiley face was painted still on the wall to John's right. On the mantle was the skull Sherlock had been so ambiguous about for the past few years they'd known each other, with a scarf around it, added recently for decoration.

In a paroxysm of rage, John lifted the phone, screaming, and threw it at the mantle. It exploded in half a dozen pieces on the floor, luckily missing the skull and all the rest of the mantelpieces which John could not have bared to lose. He felt his cheeks flush as he broke into a cold sweat, ashamed of himself. Sweet Mrs. Hudson would surely be over to see what the trouble was.

As he tried like the soldier he was to fight away his tears, he desperately hoped that Sherlock had heard John's last words to him before he had hung up the phone. Whatever fate he was on his way to, John wanted him to at least know that he loved him.

In the corner of his eye, he saw the small red glow on the floor indicating that the tape recorder he had thrown was still going. He pursed his lips, and slowly bent down to flip the switch.

~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~.*~

John eyed himself in the mirror, turning to view his profile in the pale yellow dress shirt he'd put on for the occasion. He'd gotten quite fit since he'd met Annie, a health-obsessed young doctor whose practice was opening tomorrow with John on staff. She was only in her late twenties, quite a bit younger than John, but she was remarkably clever and energetic. She'd reintroduced a sense of liveliness into his inert life, and the past three months he'd spent with her had definitely been a turn-around from the dreadful five that had preceded them.

Looking at himself, he found that he was able to smile. What he saw was not the exhausted grey- haired old man who he'd so detested to look upon following Sherlock's disappearance over a year before. His eyes twinkled with hope, even if the wrinkles that his stress had brought about were there for good.

A hand on his shoulder took him by surprise and he jumped a bit, much to its owner's amusement. Annie rose to her tippy toes so that she could lay her chin gently on John's right shoulder. She was a tiny thing, like a fairy. He hadn't quite gotten used to being with someone so much smaller than him. "My oh my, look how handsome you are." She said flirtatiously with a bit of bite at the end, looking at John's reflection in the mirror as her hand moved gently up his arm. John turned his head, leaving hardly any room between his own face and hers as he smiled with gratitude. She gave him a long kiss before presenting him with a pair of ties. Also straight down to business, Annie was. "I thought these two would clash least with that rebellious shade of yellow." She teased. The first she held was a satin mustard tie, one he'd had for years but that hadn't seen much wear. The other was technically not his at all. He immediately recognized it as belonging to Sherlock. He blinked as nostalgia washed over him, which passed completely under Annie's radar. Sherlock had never been one for wearing ties, as John had learned the Christmas he'd given it to him. Sherlock had grimaced, making it quite obvious that the gift wasn't to his liking, but was sure to say thank you, as he believed it was expected of him as John's _friend_ to do. John giggled, recalling Sherlock's almost cartoonish disapproval. He might as well have thrown back his head and groaned. The next day, unsurprisingly, John had found it in his own garment drawer.

John was somewhat delighted and mostly saddened by the memory, but without any thought chose the black and white striped tie that had once belonged to his companion.

"Lovely." Annie said, and patted John's shoulder before quickly making her way to the kitchen. The smell of brownies wafted into John's bedroom, where he'd spent the past half hour getting ready. Annie was a kind hostess, having prepared loads of treats and bought candies and crisps for the party she was holding as a sort of "getting-to-know-you" for her new staffers. "Oh…" she shouted in frustration across the flat, "John, they're going to be here any minute now. Make sure everything is nice and tidy, will you?"

"Definitely." He agreed as he tied the final knot. He nodded at the mirror, proud of how sharp he looked in Sherlock's tie.

He had agreed to hold the party at his own flat because despite how obsessive compulsive his girlfriend was, she'd deemed John's flat more presentable than her own. They'd spent the past two days together making sure everything was in its right place, and that not a painting nor calendar was off-center. John had grown to accept having this new presence around. She had more than enough energy to fill the empty space.

John scanned each room for something even remotely out of place and failed to find a thing. While he'd grown to find Annie's neuroses rather charming, they were certainly a hassle. He sat himself down on the olive green leather couch and looked around the room. It was all very quaint. His walls were decorated with old oil paintings; Monet and Van Gogh, and others by artists whose names he didn't recognize. They were white, the walls. Perhaps an off-white, but white nonetheless- a starkly different setting than the one he'd shared with Sherlock Holmes. Here, there was no mother-like landlady to speak of. Not a disembodied cranium to look upon or even a skull- John had put that in a box which he'd hid in his closet. It seemed to throw off the blandly balanced energy the flat inherently had, and it also pained John to see it. The skull had been almost an inside joke between the two of them, even if John himself did not quite understand it. _An old friend, _Sherlock had told John when first he'd questioned it. John quietly laughed to himself, shaking his head. What an eccentric man his Sherlock had been.

Suddenly there was a knock at the door, and John reluctantly rose to answer it. Over the sound of his own footsteps, he faintly heard Annie's panic from the kitchen: "Oh, gosh! The brownies aren't baked, John! I've barely even started!"

As he put his hand on the knob, the revelation struck him that he didn't want to speak right now. To _anyone_, really. He bit his lip. Coming in with that mindset, this was sure to be a rough party. He'd have to make a pleasant enough impression, though, for he'd be starting work with these people tomorrow.

John opened the door and beheld a tall man, slender with a mop of curly black hair and striking features. He bore an eerie resemblance Sherlock; so taken about was John that he forgot to greet him, and the two were trapped in an awkward silence. He wondered how much of Sherlock's image was actually there, and how much he was projecting onto the man. Sherlock look-alike smiled uncomfortably, and reached his hand out to shake John's. Politely, he complied, plastering a fake smile onto his own face. Already this gentleman surpassed Sherlock in terms of manners.

"Pleasure to meet you." Said Sherlock look-alike, and proceeded to introduce himself. John forgot the poor man's name as he was saying it, which he immediately felt sore about.

"John Watson." He responded, in an overly-friendly tone to make up for how unpleasant he'd managed to make the past 15 seconds for the both of them. Fortunately, Annie rushed in with her oven mitts on to give their party of three an instantly more pleasant air. John looked away, then, turning his back to the pair and fixing his eyes on the remarkably dull walls of his flat. He knew he was being rude, but a desperate little voice in him was saying again and again that this sort of socializing was simply not the stuff of real life. Tomorrow he was set to begin a new job. He was in a relationship, he had own flat, but something about it felt dreadfully false. He had not yet gone into panic mode, but the walls were quickly closing in on an artifice of reality.

The thrill that life with Sherlock had given him; yes, a life full of chases and serial killers, never the same as it was the day before. That was what life truly meant to John, a premium period of his time on Earth that had escaped him long ago. The vastly different place he had found himself in a year later was not life, but just existence. He could almost feel Annie's eyes burning at the back of his head like laser vision as he not-so-suavely made his way out of the living room and into the kitchen to seek wine. He wondered if this was anything like how Sherlock viewed social events.

When he returned, the pattern continued. He'd introduce himself to a new batch of strange and friendly faces, who would be forgotten as soon as John looked away from them. He tried his best to catch their names, though, otherwise facing Annie and his co-workers tomorrow would be a nightmare. He dabbled in conversation, idly making self-deprecating jokes, poking fun at his boring living space and his romantic connection with the woman who tomorrow would be his boss. John had none of Annie's food, much to her silent disappointment. He truly felt bad about how rudely he'd been treating her, he wanted to take her aside and tell her that he loved her cooking, and she'd be a terrific boss, but such a gesture required a capacity for sentiment that John was not entirely sure he possessed anymore.

On his third or fourth glass of wine, John's cell phone began to ring. He took it from his pocket and the name that was displayed was effective in sobering him up. _Lestrade. _"Why would Lestrade be calling me?" he murmured to himself. No one was paying much attention to him anyway.

He hadn't heard from the Detective Inspector in nearly eight months, and had begun to accept that he never would. He clenched his jaw and swallowed hard, unsure of what this could be about. It could really only be about one thing, John figured. One man. But that was impossible. He rose, unapologetically, and fled the room to go to the empty kitchen where he could have quiet. Leaning on the table for balance, he studied the name once more before answering the phone. "Hello?" he said, casually.

"John." Lestrade replied in earnest tone. "Well… how are you?" he asked. The question seemed hopelessly out of place, but John humored him nonetheless.

"I'm fine- what's going on?" he inquired, trying not to sound too anxious.

"Well, I- I don't quite know how to tell you this." He began, following it with a sigh.

"Go on." John said, biting at his nail to distract from his swiftly beating heart.

"It's Sherlock." He said uneasily. "Three days ago, we found him unconscious on the side of the road. He was awake for a while this morning, and I suppose if you wanted to come see him now…" John took a moment to process what he'd heard as Lestrade remained silently on the other end. He was bubbling over with emotions, none of which he could quite identify. All at once they came out, much to his surprise, in a short and breathy laugh. His eyes watered slightly and he raised his free hand to the back of his head. "How did-" he began to ask, but thought it best not be explained to him over the phone. He wasn't sure how much Lestrade knew anyway.

He took the phone from his ear and put his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath. When he stood up straight again, he realized he was shaking. "He's at St. Bart's?" he opted to ask.

"Yeah- listen, John." Lestrade said, in a disconcertingly solemn tone. "I want you to know that, I mean, we'll play it as it lays, but… he's in _very_ bad shape right now." John responded with a sound of understanding, but Lestrade's warning did not particularly affect him. The man of whom they spoke was the strongest that John had ever known. If a recovery was possible, Sherlock would surely make it. "Just be brave for him, okay? He might not even be awake or want to talk when you get there." Lestrade continued.

John heard but did not listen, as he was already in his bedroom retrieving a coat from his closet. "I'll see you, then." He said into the phone. "Thank you." He hung up without a response, and turned to find Annie standing in front of him.

"Are you leaving?" she said, disappointedly.

"Annie." He said jovially, as he placed his hands on her shoulders, small and fragile like a sparrow's wings. "That was about Sherlock. He's alive. He's at St. Bart's right now and Lestrade says I can go see him."

Annie eyed him with confusion. "Sherlock, your old roommate?" John's face fell. Perhaps he had not been as honest with her about his past as he should have been. "John. You've been terribly rude this entire party. I'm sorry if I'm getting in your way, but you know this event means a lot to me and to think you'd leave without asking is pretty cruel."

John looked back and forth between Annie's doe-like brown eyes as he tried to form the quickest possible explanation to satisfy her.

"Annie, I'm sorry. The opportunities you've given me within these last three months are astounding. Unbelievable. You're… a _lovely_ woman, and I assure you, you can carry on a party without me here!" He leaned in closer to her, giving her his best look of sincerity. "This is something I have to do." He whispered. She offered no rebuttal, which John took as permission to leave. He kissed her forehead and bolted out of the room without looking back.

He gave a quick wave to his new co-workers as he passed them, and made his way out the door. He only needed to wait about 30 seconds before a taxi appeared and he was on his way, off to the unknown, but secure in the fact that he'd be seeing his friend…

...

When John exited the taxi, he was almost immediately greeted by a familiar face: Molly Hooper. In his happy state, he approached her with the intention of giving her a hug, which she needed no more than a look to reject. She looked lovely, her hair was down and her makeup was tastefully done in a way that caught John's attention. Her eyes, though, glistened with disturbance.

"Here to see Sherlock?" she asked. He figured that, being a worker in the hospital, she'd known of Sherlock's arrival long before he did.

"Yeah." He said coolly, adapting to her mysterious demeanor.

"He's asleep now." She said, her face clouding with darkness. "He's um… well, they don't seem to have a full explanation of what happened to him. None of my business anyway, I guess. But John, I think you should know that it might be a little scary to see him, the way he is. He's a sort of upsetting sight."

John turned his eyes to the ground to show his understanding of the seriousness of the situation. He knew that he should be more concerned than he was, but he'd let himself react however he would when he saw it for himself. "You okay?" he asked her.

"Yeah." Molly said, looking away from him with her arms crossed. "It's going to rain later." She mused, remarking the grey sky.

"Yeah." John agreed, following her eyes to the clouds. The two looked back at one another at the same time, and John absorbed from her an almost tangible feeling of melancholy. Looking into her eyes was overwhelming in that way, for he saw in them a sort of profound sadness that he himself had encountered all too many times before. The exchange ended unceremoniously, as John nodded at her and she nodded back, and the two parted ways.

At the front desk, he consulted a man in white about where to find Sherlock Holmes. He directed him to room 509. While in the lift, he had a moment to himself to contemplate just what was going to change for him in these next few minutes. An impossible amount of change could have come to Sherlock in the past year. Only at that moment did it occur to John that his lover very possibly could have been subject to physical torture, or perhaps worse, psychological torture.

He remembered how dreadful Sherlock had sounded over the phone those nine months ago. _Nine months. _Surely that's ages, if you've been kidnapped. How much could he have deteriorated in that time?

The doors opened before him, and he walked out into the noisy white hallway. Men and women dressed in hospital garb zipped by, and the tension of the space was almost too much to handle. He resolved to find Sherlock's room as quickly as possible. To his right he saw a door with the number "501" engraved at the top of it, so he headed off in that direction, following the odd numbers to room 509. He knew which room was Sherlock's when he saw a stout young doctor and Detective Inspector Lestrade stationed outside it. Lestrade's eyes were fixed on the notepad he held in his hand, in which he was taking copious notes. The two discussed Sherlock's condition in hushed tones, oblivious to John's arrival. "Nearly unresponsive," said the doctor, and Lestrade said it back as he made note of it. John shuttered, his delayed concern hitting him all at once. At that, he had the doctor's attention, and consequently Lestrade's.

"This is John Watson." Lestrade said, having turned to face John who he was now making eye contact with. "He was Sherlock's flat mate and closest friend for years. I'd like to speak with him, but I'd appreciate it if you could let him see Sherlock first." He looked to the doctor, who in jolted, awkward moments nodded and gestured towards the door. John thought that the whole scenario seemed surreal.

"Okay, thank you." he said respectfully. Carefully, he walked towards the door and put his hand on the knob.

"John." Whispered a deep voice in his ear. Lestrade had put his hand on John's chest to stop him while he repeated his warning. "Remember what I said. Be brave for him, alright?" John swallowed.

"Of course." He said, quietly. He happened to look down, and his eyes found Lestrade's notepad, where the word "heroin" had been scribbled multiple times on the filled page. John tore his eyes away before Lestrade realized he'd peeked. _Be brave_, he reminded himself. Lestrade let go of him, and he slowly turned the knob.


End file.
